Howdy Ma'am

35.....

Friday the 13th has never been a big deal to me, I'm only superstitious about a few things (THANKS mom) but the 13th isn't one of them.  I like the number 13, it used to be my soccer jersey number.  And i have even more reason to like it, since it's Eric's birthday.  It was the big 35 for him this year, but as every other year Eric took it in stride. The boys and i gave him his gifts on Friday morning, which included his very own camping chair in the shape of R2D2 from Star wars, and a new work bag.  The boys got him some Reece's peanut butter cups (his favorite) then he had to work BOO!!  But he was able to come home at lunch time and eat with us.  For dinner i made Tai Chicken soup and a spice cake for dessert.  We played some games and had a pretty good day.  Eric isn't big on party's so this was a perfect way for us to help him celebrate.  He got pretty spoiled i think with Shirts from his parents and some cash money from my mom (wow she knows what people like) the weekend was good with a lot of relaxing on Saturday, Eric was able to go play Magic while the boys and i hung out ate whatever we wanted and watched Seinfeld (well, i watched they fell asleep) and then Sunday we took the boys back to the museum for some play time.  We also got to see the new Elmo & Big Bird planetarium show, it was really cool.  All in all (except for an incident with Rohan) it was a GREAT weekend.  I wish they could all be like that, minimal money spent, but lots of fun & memories.  Happy birthday to my love!! 

Eric's very own camping chair, and new bag

Bag of holding (it's funny because its a D20)

This cake is terrible, but as the boys learned, even if it doesn't LOOK awesome, it still tatstes awesome

Birthday wish!

The boys are horrible slumber party dates :-)

Eric’s brother Jesse and his girlfriend Lorina came to visit us this past weekend.  It’s been over 5 years since Jesse was in CO, and Lorina had never been, so when they asked if they could stay with us, we were happy to have them.  It’s always fun when people come to visit, you get to play tourist in your own state.  They got in Friday afternoon, really too late to do anything, so we took them to southlands, and looked at the skating rink and hi0t up a couple stores.  It was then home for dinner and marbles.  Jesse and Lorina fell right into the game, like they’d been playing their whole lives.  Jesse won then Lorina then Eric (I very rarely win at marbles).  Saturday morning Bria came over and watched the boys for us while we took our guests to the Royal Gorge.  We set out early in the morning and headed to Cannon city.  Unfortunately Lorina got altitude sickness just into Colorado springs, so we stopped for lunch and got some cool pictures of the air force base & mountains.  Our drive was easy going to the gorge, although none of us could remember how to get there, we’ve all been there before but, as kids.  Lorina was in awe, having never been here, she was amazed with the mountains and the gorge.  We went on the gondola, which was a bad idea for me, unfortunately I was so scared, I didn’t take any pictures while we were in the gondola. Eric was able to get some pictures while we took the incline railway.  We of course walked on the bride, and took some more pictures.  On our way back from the gorge we stopped at The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey.  We saw it on our way in, and decided it would be cool to see.  We ended up doing a small wine tasting and taking some delicious wine home.  We then headed home, our plan was to stop at the cheesecake factory, but typical to Colorado weather, once we hit the divide, we were met with a blizzard.  What would have normally taken 1 hr, took us almost 3.  So instead we went to the California Pizza kitchen.  Sunday we took them along with the boys to the museum, we were lucky to catch the last weekend of the “Sue” exhibit with the moving dinosaurs.  We went to Rodizzio’s for lunch, which is a Brazilian restaurant which offers over a dozen rotisserie grilled meats, perfectly seasoned and carved tableside by Brazilian Gauchos. Authentic Brazilian appetizers, salads, homemade desserts. We were all happily stuffed by the time we left, Aragorn the most I think.  He had a blast telling the waiter what he wanted, and using the tongs to grab what they cut for him.  After lunch we headed to the aquarium.  We’ve been a couple time before, but the boys were never that interested.  Sunday was great though there was broncos game and we went later in the evening, so we were some of the very few people there.  We got up close and personal views of all the animals, and we even got to feed the sting rays, which was a first for all of us.  The boys got to stay up late Sunday night to get more time with uncle Jesse, whom the boys have really grown to like (Rohan wore his Jayhawks jersey for 4 days, so he could be like uncle Jesse).  We had a great visit, and we look forward to them coming back with kids next time!

All of us after the skyride

The royal gorge view

The sky ride ( i should not have gotten on)

The Abby in Cannon City

View of downtown Denver

All of us at dinner

Cheese!!

Purple starfish!

1st pic with his nephews

Brothers.

You know you hear the music

Jelly fish

Aragorn feeding/petting the sting rays

I LOVE Rohan's face in this one.....EWWWWW fish water!

Sometimes...

You have to forget that it will take you 3 hours to clean them and their clothes up.  I let the boys play in the mud last Thursday because we were having such awesome weather.  The boys loved it, and were surprised i was so easy going about letting them get so dirty (this is NOT like me) but i thought, hey kids should get dirty now and then right?

Breaking the fairy.....

Aragorn has lost the same tooth on both sides on the bottom in 4 days.......He's breaking the tooth failry over here!

Bowling.....

I took the boys bowling the other day to kind of break up the monotony of the week.  The boys love to bowl, or at least have the last couple of times we've taken them.  And surprisingly they are pretty good at it, Rohan got a strike and Aragorn picked up a ton of spares.  We weree able to get 2 games in before hunger kicked in and we left for lunch.  But we all had a good time, mybe we'll get 3 in next time.

Happy New Rohan's Birthday......

Ah January 1^st.  To so many it means a restart on last year’s failure’s, possible new love, weight loss in sight, goal will be reached.  To us here at the Spillman home, it means our youngest turns 4.  Rohan had a great day on Sunday a new year welcomed him with a sunny morning, Omi B came over with presents and we had a fun morning playing and just hanging out.  We had a mini celebration McDonald's for lunch, the Bronco's Vrs. Chiefs game and some presents from mom and dad.  For dinner we had Rohan’s favorite and tron cupcakes (it was the best Wal-Mart had) as per his MO, Rohan licked all the frosting off of his, and ate none of the cake. But not before he had his birthday wish.  We had a really good day.  We’ll have a party for him in February, which we’ll invite our friends Henry & Bradon & Dylon to.  But this little mini party with all of us has become sort of a tradition.  He said at the end of the day that he had a good day.  I had to post the picture of his hand, he wanted me to take the picture, but i thought my caption fit the day better.